Haverford College sit-in for Gaza ends after pressure from administrators; some Swarthmore students continue protest

Tensions rose at Haverford College this week after administrators warned that students could face disciplinary action for “disruptive conduct” during demonstrations that protested the war in Gaza.

Those calls effectively ended a weeklong sit-in that saw around 100 students occupy Founders Hall, a main administration building in the heart of campus.

At Swarthmore College, some students were continuing their sit-in on Thursday, though talks between organizers and administrators could soon bring the demonstration to a close, a school spokesperson said.

Students at both colleges began their demonstrations last week, refusing to leave until administrators publicly called for a cease-fire to the war in the Middle East. Swarthmore students urged their school to divest portions of its $2.7 billion endowment from companies that are shareholders in defense contractors, among other demands.

College campuses have become hotbeds for political debate this semester following Hamas’ attack in Israel on Oct. 7. Allegations of both antisemitism and Islamophobia have spurred federal investigations and calls for administrators to address student concerns over speech and safety.

At the University of Pennsylvania, president Liz Magill resigned over the weekend after backlash over her testimony before a Congressional committee to allegations of antisemitism there.

At Swarthmore — a member of the tri-college consortium of suburban liberal arts schools that includes Haverford and Bryn Mawr — students took to Parrish Hall, plastering posters of Palestinians killed in the conflict. Since the war’s outbreak, Israeli strikes in the heavily populated Gaza Strip have killed over 18,000 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Before dispersing, Haverford students had occupied Founders Hall since Dec. 6, hanging a large “Ceasefire Now” banner outside of the central campus building.

Founders Hall and Parrish Hall house the offices of both colleges’ presidents.

Since the sit-ins began, spokespeople from Haverford and Swarthmore have said the schools value freedom of expression and support students’ right to protest peacefully.

But at Haverford, that tone changed Wednesday when college president Wendy E. Raymond said in a campuswide email that the Founders Hall demonstration was “materially impeding the abilities of fellow students to pursue their studies and the abilities of staff and faculty to conduct their work.”

After meeting with Haverford administrators Tuesday evening, students were given until 9 a.m. Wednesday to leave the hall or face disciplinary action before a dean’s panel that would be “restorative — not punitive,” Raymond’s email said.

“We expressed to the organizers last night our continuing interest in working together in a number of concrete ways — and ways yet to be imagined — all in the spirit of advancing peace and education, and students indicated their interest in that,” Raymond wrote.

Haverford dean John McKnight said in a statement that because the sit-in ended, the school would not be disciplining students.

Ellie Esterowitz, an organizer with Haverford Students for Peace, said that she and some of her classmates stayed in Founders Hall a little after 9 a.m. to protest the college’s deadline.

“There’s a lot of singing and a lot of chanting,” Esterowitz said. “It feels like a lot of righteous anger, and also togetherness. Everyone’s linked arms to protect each other.”

In addition to calls for a cease-fire, students had urged Haverford to offer academic leniency to peers who were troubled over the shooting of their classmate, junior Kinnan Abdalhamid, earlier this semester.

Abdalhamid, a Palestinian, was wounded in gunfire along with two Palestinian students from other colleges in November in Vermont — an incident many believe was racially motivated.

At nearby Bryn Mawr College, Abdalhamid was a guest speaker at a pro-Palestinian rally Monday afternoon.

Students at the women’s college staged a one-day sit-in this week in Taylor Hall, though the rally did not yield the same disciplinary warnings as at other consortium schools.

Madeline Kessler, a 21-year-old Bryn Mawr student and member of Jewish Voice for Peace, said that similar to Haverford and Swarthmore, she and her classmates were calling on campus leaders to endorse a cease-fire.

She believes administrators see calling for an end to fighting as “picking a side” in the conflict. Should their demand not be met, Kessler said, students would continue to protest next semester.

“We’re insisting that a cease-fire is not picking a side,” Kessler said. “It’s a humanitarian call which benefits everybody.”